1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to measurement devices and systems, and more particularly to such devices and systems as pertain to the determination of scores for game animals according to establish scoring for game animals.
2. Background Information
As with any sport's aficionados, avid hunters tend to compete against others and against themselves using a scoring system as the proverbial yardstick.
In the case of scoring systems used to rate horned or antlered game animals, there is a correspondence between the score which is assigned to a particular animal and such things as the distance of the "inside spread" (the widest point between inside surfaces of the animal's "main beams"); the length of each "main beam" (the primary antler or horn projection from which all "points" or other sub-components of the "rack" extend); the length of each point; and the circumference of the main beam.
There exist at least two primary scoring systems for most horned and antlered game animals, but each system relies on measuring substantially the same features of a game animal's rack.
Present practices in the scoring of game animals are somewhat needlessly cumbersome. Typically, a person who scores a game animal will use a flexible tape measure, masking tape for attaching the tape measure to points of measurement origin, and a scratch pad for recording the various measurements. Also, the use of a tape measure (with its cumulative total gradations being clearly visible during use) to make the actual measurement, especially if done by the hunter himself, injects a certain temptation to skew the numbers in a positive direction if the particular measurement is "just short" of a desired objective.
It would well serve recreational hunters to provide a scoring system for use in scoring game animals, which system would be based upon the use of standardized measuring devices, easy to follow scoring guides with sequential steps for scoring, and simple to use measurement recording markers which obviate the need for such steps as marking on a tape measure, or using tape to mark the length on a tape measure, as well as having to fumble around with a pen or pencil.